Summary Of How To Tame A Wild Tongue

Throughout my time in school I have always loved learning about history and oppression, which might explain why I plan on majoring in history and sociology. Understanding how people before my time lived and made things work without having nearly as many resources as I do is extremely engaging. Then analyzing that information further by trying to understand what people's roles were and why is as equally captivating. However, it was not nearly as fascinating when I discovered both these subjects have been affecting my family for at least 100 years. Nevertheless, the most recent oppression was not being committed by a different group of people or someone in a position of power like most people would assume. In this situation my own family was keeping me down, something I did not know could happen.
As a child I could never fully comprehend why my own aunts and uncles treated my family different. Besides those acts of oppression though, I had an extremely fun childhood. I did fairly well in
Gloria Anzaldua, who was an activist and writer that grew up in Texas and endured several forms of oppression, covers several topics in her essay “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” including her feelings on the social and cultural difficulties that Mexican immigrants face when being raised in the United States. Among one of the things Anzaldua describes Mexican immigrants must endure is the judgment from other Mexicans for the way they speak Spanish. Anzaldua describes the situation as:
Often with mexicanas y latinas we'll speak English as a neutral language. Even among Chicanas we tend to speak English at parties or conferences. Yet, at the same time, we're afraid the other will think we're agringadas because we don't speak Chicano Spanish. We oppress each other trying to out-Chicano each other, vying to be the ‘real’ Chicanas, to speak like Chicanos. (Anzaldua